Ramblings from an earthling whose serious attempts at confronting reality may just piss some fellow earthlings off..;)

Thursday, April 01, 2004

What's this thing with bullies nowadays? We've got road bullies, school bullies, kindergarten bullies, neighborhood bullies and the list goes on and on...with the latest rage off course being school bullies. That poor kid who got beaten to death last Sunday...what has happened to our school children? Are we so immersed in our worldly pursuits that we blatantly ignore the value of one's life? The kid got beaten over a stupid kettle ok...or so it seems. And our newly appointed Education Minister was REALLY quick to give his two cents' worth on this. Well let's hope his actions will match his words. And I'm not gonna yak on this further than what has been published, except for this - yeah I went to a boarding school to and those days ragging was still practiced although sometimes they degenerated into fights, we were gentlemen about it i.e it was one on one and you would'nt find a whole bunch of thugs beating up a single guy. What those kids in Seremban did the other day was cowardly and they deserved to be put away for the rest of their lives! These are the kind of religious zealots who would bring nothing but trouble in the future and I shudder to think the kind of fear they'll instill in my kids who are just beginning to enjoy the wonders of going to school.

Do I have a solution? Probably yes and no, but the least I can do is to instill a sense of responsibility in my kids from a very young age. I know other parents would do the same although with varying degrees of success. What makes it quite tricky is the fact that today's society is constantly being bombarded with tons of information, some of it useful and the rest being junk. A lot are even quite harmful - check this out guys..last week I was describing Herge' s famous Tintin character to my eldest and searched Google for his image and guess what I found among them...Tintin was actually fondling Madame Castafiore's exposed breasts!!! http://www.stupide.net/archives/decembre/decembre.htm My son shrieked and he immediately clasped both hands onto his face! Imagine his horror at that sight, and I was completely dumbfounded! And of course my boy had to tell his mum later...typical of a soon-to-be 8 year old :) Well so much for that, but I must say..Tintin still continues to be my favourite comic character of all time. They actually have his series in 3-in-1 volumes these days. Actually I bought a set for my kids (RM69 a piece!!) at Kinokuniya the other day and my kids just love it!

Now back to the piece about the school thugs. If anything, peer pressure is a denominating factor in such incidences. You become bound to the group and any dissent would be dealt with in the severest possible manner, even if it means lynching you to death! So once you're in it, there's no way out! Toe the line or we'll beat the crap out of you; that's the message instilled among them.

But maybe the thugs who did this needed an outlet? Probably, but who knows? Beating the kid was convenient enough for some reason ar another. Will they grow up to become serial killers? There's more than a fair chance of that happening. Or they can choose from the following list of other professions which fit their character - loan sharks, pirates, pimps, hitman etc. Good luck to these people; they'll more than need it!